A blog site for the anthology, A Tingling Catch: A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009 edited by Mark Pirie; foreword by Don Neely (HeadworX Publishers, Wellington, New Zealand, 2010). The blog features reviews and commentary on the book as well as New Zealand cricket poetry, reviews of New Zealand cricket books and other related material. The book's cover is by UK cricket painter Jocelyn Galsworthy.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Ellesmere 1920s NZ cricket poems found

Cricket poetry turns up in surprising places. It gives cricket historians a vivid picture of local cricket play. One such instance of local cricket poetry recording history turned up in a Canterbury, New Zealand, paper recently: The Ellesmere Guardian.
From August-November 1927 a local ‘Poet’s Forum’ existed between various local poets of this rural Ellesmere area going under pseudonyms like ‘Mudlark’, ‘Doyleston’, ‘Leeston’, ‘Springs Herald’, and ‘Lakeside’.
Two of the poets wrote cricket poems on the local Shield competitions between local cricket clubs: Doyleston-Leeston, Irwell, Dunsandel, Springston, Southbridge, College, Weedons and Tai Tapu.
They played their matches at locally produced grounds. I’m unsure of the names and quality of the players. These pitches look to be of varying quality, some without matting, but the better wickets and fields were well kept and mown by local groundsmen.
The first poem by ‘Doyleston’ is about a match between his team Doyleston and Irwell, October 1927.
Here’s the scorecard:

LAST SATURDAY’S MATCHES.
IRWELL v. DOYLESTON.

Doyleston played Irwell at Osborne Park and a very enjoyable game resulted in Irwell being victorious. The ground was in good order, being a credit to Mr Osborne, who put in all Saturday morning mowing the grass.

Of interest in this scorecard is that all XI of the Doyleston-Leeston team turned their arm over without success, three batsmen retiring.
This match report was followed by the following poem by ‘Leeston’ (Ellesmere Guardian, 28 October 1927):

SHIELD CRICKET

DOYLESTON-LEESTON v IRWELL

(By “Leeston”)

Oh, you gallant Doyleston men who handle bat and ball,
What the mischief has come over you? you cannot play at all;
Even with the help of Leeston men, old Irwell done you brown,
You’d better put some school kids in, they may not let you down.

Your field it is a credit, and the wicket is quite true.
But you cannot pile a score at all, no matter what you do.
The Leeston men that you roped in put up a decent score,
But your five crack batsmen only added forty-seven more.

You had a good innings, but it didn’t last long,
And you knew that your bowlers weren’t too strong;
The Leeston men here did not at all shine,
And some of them bowled for the very first time.

One Irwell old-timer made nearly half of your score,
He retired with a grin, for your bowlers were sore;
Then another made fifty, that was old Peter the Great,
He retired also, for it getting quite late.

Only one made a “duck” on the whole Irwell side,
(You didn’t quite kill him, though you jolly well tried).
For the second-top scorer you sent your field deep,
But he pasted your trundlers, and made them look cheap.

There’s a few still in Leeston that you haven’t tried;
They cannot bowl “wrong” 'uns, but may help on your side;
You must come and collect them, for they won’t walk that far,
And after the match you must bring them home in a car.

I’ll ask a wee question, but one within reason,
Will you publish your averages at the end of the season?
They’d be quite interesting, as history you know,
Of how Doyleston played cricket in the days long ago.

Every team has a day off, and play against luck,
Even the redoubtable Hobbs may go out for a “duck;”
But your batsmen fail badly in all sorts of weather,
And all that they’re good for is hunting the leather.

Take a small hyphen and place it between
Old Leeston and Doyleston, for 'tis plain to be seen
That, alone and unaided, you are in for a dishing
From every old team in the Shield competition.

Earlier, ‘Doyleston’ wrote a humorous cricket poem (Ellesmere Guardian, 18 October 1927) about the match between Doyleston and College, a heavy defeat, so this must’ve provoked his friend ‘Leeston’ to write in the next week as well:

NOUGHTY CRICKET

(By “Doyleston”)

Dear Mudlark, I’m O feeling well, my tale is O too nice to tell,
I can O write coherently, when O but duck eggs I can see.
Our Cricket Club, I’m sad to say, has shown us that they can O play
The ancient game with bat and ball — they can O win a match at all.

They can O bowl they can O bat, on a pitch that has O got a mat,
They say they were O all asleep, although they followed on like sheep.
You see, they went on Saturday, a team of College boys to play,
And now they’re O but “ifs” and “buts” — methinks they can O play for nuts.

They did O have their usual luck, for many did O break a duck —
The score, I’m told, is O too tall — some did O even see the ball!
Which prompts some very sound advice, I hope they’ll O think it O nice,
Do O aspire to cricket fame, — but stay at home and play — marbles.

By these examples, pavilion poets served the local country Doyleston-Leeston XI well that season, attempting to rev up their players.

About Me

Mark Pirie is an internationally published New Zealand poet, anthologist, literary critic, writer and publisher with a special interest in cricket poetry. In 2010 he edited and published 'A Tingling Catch': A Century of New Zealand Cricket Poems 1864-2009. Mark's previous anthology of New Zealand Science Fiction poetry, co-edited with Tim Jones and published by IP, Brisbane, won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Collected Work 2010. His publishing company is HeadworX Publishers: http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz As a publisher and author he has over 100 titles listed in the National Library of New Zealand. His website is www.markpirie.com His other interests are popular music. In 2010 he helped co-organise the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa (PANZA). Web site: http://poetryarchivenz.wordpress.com